c. 1998 Religion News Service

Cardinal condemns proposal supporting domestic partnerships

(RNS) Roman Catholic Cardinal John O’Connor has condemned a proposal before the New York City Council that would make domestic partners legally equal to married couples. “Marriage matters supremely to every person and every institution in our society. It is imperative, in my judgment, that no law be passed contrary to natural moral law and Western tradition by virtually legislating that marriage does not matter,”O’Connor said during his regular Sunday (May 24) homily at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani _ a Roman Catholic _ proposed the plan that gives unmarried couples who register with the city the same rights and benefits as married couples in city contracts, housing and death benefits. The legislation’s primary effect would be to guarantee rights that domestic partners already have acquired in practice.

Giuliani proposed the plan to keep a re-election campaign promise from last fall. The bill, covering 8,700 heterosexual and gay couples who have registered with the city as domestic partners, is almost certain to pass the City Council with bipartisan support.

Giuliani said he views protection for domestic partners as a basic human rights issue.

San Francisco and Hawaii have the nation’s most extensive domestic partnership laws. Earlier this month, Philadelphia’s City Council passed a bill granting broad rights to domestic partners despite the objections of the city’s Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

O’Connor’s comments, while garnering applause in the cathedral, drew sharp criticism from gay and lesbian leaders.

J. Matthew Foreman, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, said the cardinal’s”denigration of the love and commitment of gay and lesbian families”insulted him.

Many of the 2,500 worshippers at St. Patrick’s Sunday were tourists and most appeared to agree with O’Connor, according to The New York Times.

Betty Glies, 64, a retired school teacher from Syracuse, N.Y., said,”We need to help these people out, not promote it.” However, John J. McConnell Jr., a Sunday school teacher who was visiting with his wife and two daughters from Providence, R.I., objected.”It sounded like he dusted off an old sermon in defense of Jim Crow laws. He kept using the term `family’ with no acknowledgment that there can be alternative kinds of families.” O’Connor said his remarks were made”with love, judging no one.”But he insisted that the proposed legislation”can eventually lead to moral and cultural changes in our society neither anticipated nor traditionally desired from our earliest days as a people.”

Bomb rocks second church in Illinois county

(RNS) Investigators believe there is no link between a bomb blast that injured 33 people and blew open a wall in a Danville, Ill., church Sunday (May 24) and an earlier explosion in the same county that killed one person.

Authorities announced they had a suspect _ who has not been arrested _ in the first bombing, but none in the most recent explosion.

The bomb that exploded Sunday was placed between a wall and an air conditioning unit outside the First Assembly of God Church and went off just as the Rev. Dennis Rogers concluded an offering prayer, the Associated Press reported.

Most of the injured were teenagers who were seated near the wall. A 2-inch piece of shrapnel pierced 13-year old Natasha Wolf’s ankle.

Her mother Cathy Wolf said,”I’m angry that somebody would do this to our church _ and to all the young people who were doing the right thing on Sunday morning. But I’m also so grateful to God that it wasn’t worse. No explosion will ever keep us away from the love of God.” The explosion was the second church bombing in six months in Vermilion County. In December, church volunteer Brian Plawer was killed outside Oakwood United Methodist Church, 10 miles west of Danville.

Law enforcement officials are treating the bombings as separate incidents, said special agent Jerry Singer of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

U.S. Catholic, Presbyterian leaders hail Irish accord

(RNS) U.S. Presbyterian and Roman Catholic leaders have congratulated the people of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic following their ratification of the”Good Friday Agreement”designed to end nearly 30 years of religious violence between Catholics and Protestants.”They have taken a significant risk for a future of peace in an effort to put aside generations of past conflict,”the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J., chairman of the United States Catholic Conference’ international policy committee, said in a joint statement issued Tuesday (May 26).”Critical challenges lie ahead, however. American support, which has been so significant for the peace process, will remain important as the agreement is implemented, and as the arduous process of healing and reconciliation proceeds,”they said.”As people of faith, we pray that Catholics and Protestants on the island of Ireland will find that their shared Christian values offer them a firm foundation for the new future which, with God’s help, they have now begun to build.” The agreement _ overwhelmingly approved in balloting _ guarantees for Protestants that North Ireland will remain part of Great Britain as long as a majority of its residents want that. Catholics gained greater involvement in North Ireland affairs.

The majority of Northern Ireland Protestants are Presbyterians.

Pope views Shroud of Turin, calls for more research

(RNS) Pope John Paul II has urged additional research into the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, the linen that many believe was the burial cloth of Jesus.

Some scientists concluded that the shroud dates to the 13th or 14th century after testing scraps of it in 1988. However, the scientists could not explain how the image on the 14 foot-long, 3 1/2 foot-wide shroud was formed.

The image is of a man with wounds like those Jesus suffered during the Crucifixion.”The shroud is a challenge to intelligence,”John Paul said after viewing the famous cloth Sunday (May 24) in Turin, Italy, where it is currently on display until June 14.

He asked scientists to study the cloth”without preconceived positions”and with”scientific methodology and the sensibility of the faithful,”according to the Associated Press.

The public will next be able to view the shroud during 2000. There are indications the Vatican may favor more tests after that time.

Federal law protecting access to abortion clinics withstands challenge

(RNS) A federal law protecting access to abortion clinics withstood a Supreme Court challenge from North Carolina anti-abortion protesters Tuesday (May 26).

The protesters argued the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) discriminated against abortion opponents and also that Congress overstepped its authority to regulate interstate commerce when it passed the law. The court rejected these arguments without comment.

The law, enacted after many violent incidents at abortion clinics, bans the use of force, threats or blockades to interfere with access to reproductive health care, including abortions.

The rejected appeal also argued that a North Carolina law was applied unconstitutionally when police threatened to arrest protesters for activities like handing out leaflets.

The Rev. Ronnie Wallace, the Rev. John Bradley, Diane Hoefling, Trudie Matthews, and Sharon Hoffman filed a lawsuit in December 1993 to halt enforcement of the North Carolina clinic-access law.

A federal judge in Charlotte ruled both laws unconstitutional in April 1996. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision.

Helen Alvare, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops on abortion, said the prelates are”disappointed”with the High Court’s decision.”While the National Conference of Catholic Bishops does not organize pro-life demonstrations or events outside abortion clinics, since the early days of the FACE bill we have opposed singling out pro-life activists for targeted, viewpoint-based punishment,”Alvare said.

Quote of the Day: Czech President Vaclav Havel

(RNS)”I have become increasingly convinced that the crisis of the much-needed global responsibility is in principle due to the fact that we have lost the certainty that the universe, nature, existence and our lives are the work of creation guided by a definite intention, that it has definite meaning and follows a definite purpose.” _ Czech President Vaclav Havel, writing in the April/May edition of the journal Civilization.

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